Analysis of the Fire Effectiveness of Medium Calibre Indirect Fire Naval Weapon System

Abstract

‘Oto Melara’ 76/62mm Compact Single Mounting Weapon system is the largest caliber one and only fire control radar coupled weapon system Sri Lanka Navy possessed with by 2019. Yet, this could not effectively used during war time due to prolong defects and its effectiveness also not analyzed by any means we don’t follow such a system too. Analysis or the prediction of the effectiveness of a particular weapon system before acquiring and operational use, is an important aspect. This process is mainly based on analysis of all possible static, dynamic error sources and certain environmental parameters related to firing ground, integrated through a calculation model. Single Shot Hit Probability (SSHP) is used in this study for analyzing the fire effectiveness of the said weapon system through a Matlab based calculation model. The model is based on what practiced by PLA Navy (Naval University of Engineering) and considers errors in the Observation equipment, Fire Control, Servo systems, Ballistic Meteorological errors and Dispersion errors for predicting the distribution of shots. SSHP of the system against various targets of large and smaller size kept at various ranges, bearings from the firing ship is considered for the analysis and hitting the target is considered as a kill, due to the effect of the 76mm High Explosive ammunition. Military personnel in the Gunnery field and decision makers would be benefitted with this study by enhancing the knowledge on sources of firing errors and how to predict the effectiveness of a weapon system without choosing the costly method of analyzing actual firing records.